


credit where it's due

by paravin



Series: last to see the light [10]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Competency, Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Rescue Missions, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paravin/pseuds/paravin
Summary: When Crow’s reconnaissance mission against the Cabal goes awry, Glint puts his rescuing skills to the test.(They might need some work.)
Relationships: The Crow & Glint (Destiny)
Series: last to see the light [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180733
Comments: 17
Kudos: 46





	credit where it's due

**Author's Note:**

> me, a clown: I’m going to take a break from fic  
> me, two days later: okay but what if
> 
> I love the new season a lot, I am very happy. I do not love Cabal drop-pods.

“Crow! Crow, it’s me!” Propelling himself out of the air vent, Glint declares, “I’m here to rescue you!”

The Eliksni slumped in the holding cell looks at him and makes a dubious clicking noise.

Glint pauses. “Oh.”

He backs off sheepishly towards the vent. “Sorry! I didn’t realise this ship had more than one cell. Cabal ship architecture is very confusing sometimes. Especially when you’re in a pipe.”

The Eliksni’s four eyes blink up at him and Glint lifts one point in an apologetic little wave. “Sorry again! Once I find my Guardian, we’ll come back to help you!”

He gets a snarl in response, along with a mutter about wanting to eat Glint’s Guardian, and Glint reconsiders when he notices the Eliksni’s House of Dusk insignia. 

“Okay, well, I guess we won’t help you,” he admits, “but maybe you can eat some Cabal instead? They seem like they’d be tastier than Crow would? Much more meat!

The Eliksni lunges for him in irritation and Glint zooms back into the vent with a yelp. 

Maybe he underestimated how difficult this rescuing business is.

It was bad luck, mostly, which led to Crow’s capture. He’d been caught in the crossfire of a skirmish between Cabal and Eliksni during an otherwise routine reconnaissance mission, and while he’d done a good job of evading actual enemies with guns, an incoming Cabal drop-pod had blindsided them both. Glint revived him as quickly as possible, only for Crow to find himself staring down the barrels of a dozen Cabal guns before he was bundled onto their ship for transport.

And yes, sure, maybe Crow had specifically told Glint to go to the Vanguard for help, but Crow isn’t the only one who’s been learning from the Guardian (and their ghost). 

Glint has definitely got this. 

Just as soon as he figures out a way through these vents.

He has two more false starts, inadvertently intruding on one Cabal polishing his weapon and another Cabal polishing something that definitely isn’t his weapon, before he stumbles upon Crow’s cell. It’s tiny, only just wide enough for a Cabal to even fit inside, but Glint’s glad to see there’s no-one in there but Crow as he shoves his way out of the vent with a quiet _oomph_. 

Crow flinches at the sound. It’s only when he flies around to the front of the beam Crow is cuffed to that Glint realises he’s blindfolded and so he hovers in front of his face as he whispers, “It’s okay! It’s me!”

 _Hwi?_ is about all that makes it out past the gag that’s been stuffed in Crow’s mouth. 

“Yep!” Glint replies. “I’m here to rescue you!”

While the response is better than the snarl he got from the Eliksni, it’s still not remotely comprehensible, and Glint huffs in contemplation. This would be easier with hands.

“Hold still,” he tells Crow. “Let me just try to…”

He scoots close to Crow’s face to wedge the top plates of his shell underneath the blindfold. Crow makes another mumbled noise through the gag but Glint opts to ignore it as he pushes upward, dragging the material up and over Crow’s head. 

Crow shakes it the rest of the way free, leaving his hair dishevelled but his eyes uncovered, and Glint goes to work on the gag too, tugging it down until it hangs loose around Crow’s neck.

He bounces in relief. “I’m so glad I found you!”

“Glint-”

“Those ventilation shafts aren’t easy to navigate,” Glint continues. Going on a solo rescue is very exciting but it’s better when he has someone to talk to. “Also I don’t think the Eliksni in the other cell likes you very much.”

“Glint,” Crow says again, firmer. “What are you doing here?”

While the bruises on Crow’s face are nothing life-threatening, Glint runs a scan for brain damage anyway and frowns when it comes back clean.

“I’m rescuing you,” Glint reminds him. He thought he’d been clear on that point.

“Glint,” Crow says with a sigh. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help but you should have called the Vanguard. It’s dangerous for you here.”

“Psht, I can be stealthy!” Glint says. “Plus, I know Guardians are sensitive about dying to Cabal drop-pods; I didn’t think I should put it in the official report.”

“Not my finest moment,” Crow admits but Glint’s pleased to see the smile on his lips even as he tugs on his restraints. “Okay, _rescuer_ , what’s your plan for getting me out of here?”

Glint pauses. “I may not have thought that far yet. But I found you?”

He backs up, swooping around to where Crow’s wrists are bound on the other side of the support beam, but he frowns when his scan doesn’t reveal any weak points in the heavy cuffs. “I’m not sure how to get you out of those.”

“The legionaries carry keys,” Crow says, and Glint perks up.

“I can pick their pockets!”

“No,” Crow says flatly.

“But—”

“You are not putting yourself in any more danger,” Crow insists. He groans as he pushes himself to his feet, still trapped against the beam, and nods to the ceiling. “I spotted a loose cable up there earlier. I don’t know if the shock would be enough to take out a Cabal but it’s worth a shot, right?”

Glint nods and coasts over to peer out through the window. The cells are in the cargo hold of the ship, tucked close against the engines, and while the upper deck contains about a dozen Cabal, there’s only one yawning legionary on duty down there at the moment.

“Okay,” he whispers back to Crow, “you lure him in and I’ll shock him.”

“Easier said than done,” Crow admits. “They may have lost patience with me trying to talk to them. I don’t think these ones speak anything other than Ulurant and I’m not exactly fluent.”

“Good thing your friendly ghost is here then, hm?” Glint says cheerfully. He rises up, tucking himself amid the sparking wires up above, and says, “Okay, repeat after me.”

Without an actual body, it’s hard to reproduce the guttural nuances of the language but Glint thinks he does a respectable job.

Crow’s replication, on the other hand, is terrible.

The legionary on guard stops by the door, looks in with a grunt, then stomps off again, and Crow looks up at Glint in confusion. “What happened?”

“You told him he has nice legs,” Glint says.

Crow’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re having me _flirt_ with him?”

“No!” Glint says, although now he thinks about it, that may have been a better idea. Lots of people seem to find Crow strangely appealing. “You just pronounced it wrong. It’s a complex language.”

Crow sighs. “Okay, give it to me again.”

Glint obliges. Crow’s effort is significantly better this time, and he’s rewarded for it by a roar of anger from outside the cell and the sound of a key turning in the lock.

“He’s coming,” Crow whispers. “He’s angry — what did I say to him?”

“You think he’s weak and a disappointment to his oxen.”

Crow looks up. “Oxen?”

“It was supposed to be ‘ancestors’,” Glint says. He reminds himself that Crow has lots of talents; it’s okay that correct pronunciation of Ulurant nouns isn’t one of them. “Oxen seems to be working though!”

The door swings open and Glint drives his shell against the loose wire with determination. He isn’t fast enough to prevent the legionary approaching Crow with a furious growl and he winces in sympathy as Crow doubles over when the legionary punches him hard in the stomach. It’s followed by a couple of solid blows to his face and Crow says through gritted teeth, “Any time now, Glint!”

Glint spins, putting the back of his shell to the wiring and pushing with all his strength, and he lets out a delighted yell when it finally moves. 

The wire seems to tumble as if slowed, the sparking fibres swinging down from the ceiling to collide with the legionary’s armor, and Glint watches from the rafters as the Cabal’s body jerks in pain, arms and legs locking in place. 

It isn’t enough to knock him out, not quite, and Glint looks to Crow in panic as the legionary struggles to regain his footing. “What should we—”

The problem is solved when Crow slams his head forward to crack against the legionary’s skull. Their jailer staggers, beady eyes blinking, but then pitches backwards to collapse in an unconscious heap in the cell. 

Glint looks to Crow in surprise. “Nice!”

Crow squeezes his eyes shut, leaning against the pole for support. “Fuck, that hurt.” 

Glint flits down to scan him for new injuries. “Looks like he got a couple of good hits in. Sorry about that.”

“Not the hits,” Crow says, swaying. “The headbutt.” He grimaces. “Saint makes it look so easy.”

“If it helps, it was very impressive,” Glint says sincerely. “I think Saint would be proud.”

Crow laughs and then winces again. He prods the Cabal’s body with his foot as he asks, “Can you find the key?”

“Of course I can find the key,” Glint says. He just took down a Cabal warrior, after all. “Stay there.”

“Don’t really have much choice,” Crow points out, rattling his cuffs, but he’s smiling as he leaves Glint to search.

It’s a much slower process than Glint hoped. While the sheer size of the Cabal is clearly an advantage in battle, it also means a much larger surface area on which to store things like keys, and Glint pats his shell against what feels like dozens of pockets before he hears a jingle from one at the waist of the Cabal’s uniform. “A-ha!”

“Good job,” Crow says. “Can you lift them?”

“Absolutely,” Glint says. He’s made it this far; he isn’t going to be defeated by some keys. “Just… hold… on…”

It’s not his most dignified effort, wiggling his shell against the fabric of the legionary’s uniform to try to coax the keys out of his pocket, but to his credit, Crow doesn’t laugh once. The keys finally clatter to the floor and Glint lifts his plates as wide as he can to catch the thin ring of the keys between them. “Got it!”

His flight is lopsided as he trails over to Crow and he shakes himself off with an uncomfortable whirr when he drops the keys into Crow’s waiting hands. “See! Glint the Rescuer, at your service.”

“Glint the Rescuer,” Crow echoes, smiling as he works the key into the locks. “I suppose I owe you a statue now?”

“Oh, no,” Glint says, modestly. “You’ve saved me plenty of times too — you don’t owe me anything.” The cuffs fall away with a jangle and Glint’s plates lift in a shrug. “Although if you wanted to give me a small medal or something, I wouldn’t say no.”

Crow laughs. Despite the bruising, he seems happy as he rubs his sore wrists before dropping a teasing kiss against the tip of Glint’s shell. “We make it out of this, I will give you as many medals as you want.”

Glint beams, floating close to boop his shell against Crow’s nose, and Crow’s smile softens as he says, “Thanks, Glint.”

Glint can’t keep his shell from fluttering a little at the praise. “You’re welcome.”

Crow crouches down to grab the legionary’s rifle. “Well, you’ve done your part,” he says, squaring his shoulders. “I guess it’s time for me to do mine.”

On Crow’s signal, Glint takes up position a few feet behind him as they lock the unconscious legionary in the cell and make their way upwards through the ship. Still revelling in his own success, Glint is reminded just how far Crow’s come as he watches him slip between the clusters of Cabal, dodging shotgun fire and taking out enemy after enemy with quick precise blows. His own Light flares proudly within him when a glowing gun coalesces in Crow’s hand and he floats forward to Crow’s shoulder as Crow incinerates the last few charging Cabal.

“You’re getting really good at that,” Glint tells him. “Even the Guardian says—”

He trails off as the ship lurches below them and he narrows his iris. “Crow, did you shoot the pilot?”

Crow takes off running for the cockpit and Glint sighs. “Really?”

“They didn’t exactly state their name and rank when they were lining up to shoot me,” Crow points out. He looks tiny as he slides into the Cabal-sized pilot seat but his fingers move over the buttons with familiar ease. “This doesn’t look too hard.”

Glint whirrs with skepticism. “I feel like the Traveler gave you a paracausal ship with no controls for a reason.”

“I’m good at flying!”

“Yet somehow bad at landing.” He hovers at Crow’s shoulder as the bottom of the ship skims the Nessus treeline. “The Vanguard have a base just over that ridge. Can you get to that?”

Crow nods, flicking a couple of switches and steering the ship up in time to avoid a large rock. They crest the ridge, the blue and orange banners of the base just visible in the distance, but Glint’s eye goes wide when he sees the anti-aircraft guns rotate in their direction. “Oh, no.”

Crow slaps at something on the control panel and the grunts of Cabal chatter over the radio are replaced by the familiar voice of the Vanguard. “Report-”

“Don’t shoot! It’s us!” Crow calls into the microphone. “In the Cabal ship. It’s me- uh, it’s Crow and Glint.”

“And two prisoners,” Glint chimes in, thinking of the unconscious legionary and the chompy Eliksni still left in the cells.

There’s a brief crackle, followed by Osiris’ voice. He sounds very tired. “Crow, why do you have a Cabal ship?”

“Long story?” Crow tries. “I can lose it if you want?”

“No.” Glint hears Osiris sigh. “Bring it in. It could be useful, I suppose.”

There’s a rustle on the other end of the line as Crow maneuvers the ship towards the landing pad and Glint can just make out Saladin’s voice. “Why is there a Cabal ship docking outside? Shoot it down!”

Osiris’ response is too low to hear but Glint and Crow exchange glances when Saladin asks sharply, “How did this freelancer of yours bring in a whole ship?”

Glint bristles a little at Crow being dismissed as a freelancer but before he can correct Saladin, Crow interrupts first, “With all due respect, Lord Saladin, I think Glint gets the credit for this one.”

Glint blinks up at Crow. His plates ripple with pleased surprise and he doesn’t pay attention to Saladin’s grumblings — _the little pork ghost did this? Osiris, what in the hell is going on here_ — as he bumps his shell happily against Crow’s shoulder. 

“I conquered a ship!” Glint says, delighted. His iris shines as he looks up at Crow. “You know, maybe you should need rescuing more often. I could get a whole fleet!”


End file.
